Saturday, March 30, 2013

It seems that pretty much everybody is a big fan of the AT&T ads with the guy talking to a group of kids sitting around in a circle. There's a ton of them, and they're all funny. Although until a few days ago I hadn't even noticed or payed any attention to what they were for, supporting my theory that commercials don't actually work. Recently several versions of the ads have come out that directly pertain to the NCAA tournament. Here's my favorite, the look on the girls face when she says she believes in herself cracks me up:

Tonight I just saw this one for the first time:

That is one very impressive table. Almost as impressive as the insane three pointer Trey Burke hit to help the Wolverines knock off Kansas yesterday:

Michigan trailed by 14 with 6:30 left, by 8 with 1:20 to go, and by 5 with just :15 seconds remaining. And then this happened.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Big Empty became popular due to being featured in the commercials for the movie "The Crow" in the spring of 1994. I watched "The Crow" a bunch of times during my freshman year in college because it was my roommate's favorite movie ever. The crazy thing with that film is that it was about a guy coming back from the dead; and the actor, Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee), was actually killed during it's filming by a mistakenly loaded gun.

In the summer of 1994 the Stone Temple Pilots released an album containing Big Empty, called "Purple." Similar to Pearl Jam's "Vs." I remember this CD for it's bright yellow scaly looking pattern. I also remember a kid at tennis camp that summer blasting this song about 100 times in a row out his dorm room window.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

This is the kind of question you have to ask when you're dealing with a person who gave himself the nickname "King." Take a look at this replay from last night; and if you're somebody who watches the NBA a lot, pretend that you're not. Try to analyze what happens with a clean slate.

To me it appears that LeBron lowers his shoulders and tries to run directly through Kirk Hinrich. From the side angle this looks like the perfect video for NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to use to demonstrate how running backs should initiate contact with a defender without using their helmets. LeBron, however, is of the opinion that this was a violent and dirty play by Hinrich which put "his highness" in danger. After the game James had this to say about the incident in question:

"Um, let me calculate my thoughts real fast before I say. I believe, and I know that a lot of my fouls are not basketball plays. First of all, Kirk Hinrich in the first quarter basically grabbed me with two hands and brought me to the ground."

LeBron felt that Hinrich should have been called for a flagrant foul for tackling him. He also used the term "basketball play" again later in the quote in regards to another foul on him by Taj Gibson. The irony of this is hysterical; so in his head barreling over a player on the way to the hoop is a "basketball play?" I don't know how anybody could watch this clip and come to the conclusion that Hinrich "brought James to the ground."

Kirk Hinrich is my size. If a 6'8" 250 pound freight train came crashing into me I'm fairly certain I'd try to grab on to anything I could. Let me ask you this LeBron, what should Hinrich have done? Would it have been the proper "basketball play" if he let you just toss him to the side like a rag doll? Or should he have stepped out of your way completely, and allowed "the king" to have an uncontested dunk?

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

The other night while I was working a young couple came in and sat at my bar. I say couple, but they definitely weren't yet a couple; it was probably their second or third date. My guess is they'd already had a few drinks that evening somewhere else. The girl ordered a water, and the guy a Jack and ginger. After a few minutes he whipped out a deck of cards (to which one of the waitresses responded by asking me if I remembered the time two people played a game of Scrabble on the bar) and started showing her some tricks.

The funny thing is, it's not as if he just happened to have the cards on him. Before he went out for the night he had to have thought something like "I'm going to bring this deck of cards on the date and do magic tricks, because that'll really make her like me." The tricks went on for about 45 minutes, and the girl was loving them. But the whole time she was drinking water, and he was on his 3rd or 4th cocktail. Finally he flips over the 3 of hearts instead of the 3 of diamonds, and she figures out what's been going on the whole time; he's using a deck of marked cards.

Seriously guy? Trying to impress her with magic is cheesy enough on it's own, but with fake magic? That's just lame. It was hard to tell whether he had actually planned on telling her or not. She didn't really seem to care though; so I guess the message here is a girl is most likely going to like you or not, regardless of what kind of "game" you throw at her.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

For the last couple weeks I've been thinking that I haven't given the Red Sox their due attention this spring. Case in point, I know next to nothing about Jackie Bradley Jr. However, the team made an announcement today that's got me feeling a little giddy: Fenway Park will be selling $5 beers and two-for-one hot dogs during the entire month of April. Well done Red Sox, well done. The second I heard the news this morning my instantaneous thought was whether or not they would run the promotion on Marathon Monday. But then shortly after the bartender in me realized that they have to; or else they'd be breaking the law.The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission regulation 204-4.03: Certain Practices Prohibited (1c):

"No licensee or employee or agent of a licensee shall sell, offer to sell or deliver to any person or group of persons any drinks at a price less than the price regularly charged for such drinks during the same calendar week."

It's the Massachusetts "no happy hour" law, which basically just states that if you're going to run a drink special you have to do it all day every day for an entire week. So if the Red Sox are planning to sell beer for $5 during the likely sparsely attended Kansas City Royals series April 19-21, they also have to do it on the best day of the year (which also happens to be my birthday this year) as well. It's going to be awesome, I can't wait.

Also I often forget to eat amongst all the hoopla and silliness of this day, but there's no way I'm not getting two hot dogs this year.

Monday, March 25, 2013

I've seen a bunch of commercials on TV lately for a movie premiering on May 24th; Fast & Furious 6. All I can think of is "how is this possible?" And there's a 7th edition already slotted to come out in 2015 as well. That'll be 7 films in 15 years, going back to the original from 2001. Several of the sequels haven't even bothered to change the title. And somehow they keep going.

There were 8 Harry Potter movies that hit theaters in a span of 11 years (also starting in 2001), but they were based on widely popular books and pretty much guaranteed to all be made the second the first one was signed off on. From 1962-1989 a whopping 16 James Bond movies (and another 7 since then) came out, which is pretty much the gold standard in terms of movie franchises. Other than that I can't think of any other film series to release so many editions in such a short time. The fact that James Bond is the closest thing I can compare this Fast & Furious nonsense to is a little disturbing.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Whether or not these are really the three biggest stories of the tourney so far is definitely debatable. But the name of this site is "37 seconds of sports and other stuff i care about," so there you go.

The ultimate Cinderella FGCU Eagles have a Celtics connection.

1. Michigan looks really good. Yeah they probably were under-seeded with a #4, and VCU at a #5 was most likely a bit of a stretch in the other direction, but the Wolverines offense looked unstoppable in their 78-53 demolition of the Rams on Saturday. In fact the Big Ten as a whole has been mighty impressive (to no surprise), making up 25% of the remaining teams in the field.

3. Florida Gulf Coast University became the first #15 seed ever to make it to the Sweet 16. Amazingly the school has only existed for 16 years, and just started playing in Division 1 basketball two seasons ago. Celtics coach Doc Rivers is also good friends with their point guard, Brett Comer. Read more about it in my article for Celtics Life.